<p>A very insightful blog written by someone at Duke Admissions, but applicable to ALL holistically admission processes. </p>
<p>I found this to be one of the most interesting statements. A recurring theme to rejected students every 5 minutes on CC. Shocked based on their stats that they did not gain an acceptance letter:</p>
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With over 32,000 students vying for just 1,700 spots in the class, even absurdly fine grained distinctions along a numeric metric wouldn’t get the selection job done. To look at just one example: more than twice as many valedictorians applied as we had spaces in the class, and that’s a count contextualized by the fact that only half of schools sending us applicants provided a class rank.
<p>Not all holistic admission processes run similarly, or are based on the same institutional goals, nor do all schools which have holistic admission processes have twice as many valedictorians applying as spaces in the class.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus. Of course it doesn’t but it does go to show that in some cases, a 4.0, 2200 SAT, Valedictorian is “just” another applicant. No special snowflake status there. The insights provided are applicable to all holistic admissions. By nature of admissions programs being holistic, they are not numbers based only, and although the methods may be different, the end result of the process is the same: good students are rejected for “no” documentable reason.</p>
<p>People come here everyday <em>shocked</em> that their excellent stat child did not get into Elite University. This certainly gives some insight on why that happens.</p>
<p>That 4.0/2200/#1 applicant would have a low chance of admission to Duke. But s/he would have a very high chance of admission to UCSC, which also uses a holistic admissions process.</p>
<p>By nature that this blog was written by a Duke admissions person and the it is Ivy day I guess I should have prefaced by saying “Holistic High Ranking Admissions”</p>
<p>“Not all holistic admission processes run similarly, or are based on the same institutional goals, nor do all schools which have holistic admission processes have twice as many valedictorians applying as spaces in the class.”</p>
<p>Oh good grief, there’s no reason to assume the Duke applicant pool isn’t pretty much the same as the applicant pool to any elite school. You know what the poster meant - you know he or she was referring to elite schools. Why be so pedantic about it? </p>
<p>The OP wrote “applicable to ALL holistically admission processes”, implying that it is not just about elite schools. Yes, these forums seem to have an elite school focus, but not everyone is aiming at such schools. It is also common on these forums to assume (incorrectly) that characteristics of elite and near-elite schools generally apply to other schools, so this looks like an example of that.</p>
<p>I would LOVE to see REAL RAW DATA. How many kids applied. What was the SAT range and medium (not average). URM. Athletes. Geographic location. and so on … </p>
<p>It shows that they are not a lock, nor is it deterministic. But anyone who has done the math (number of high schools in the country, a 2200 means that of the 3M people who took the test every year you are “only” in the 98% and many others scored better) knows that already.</p>
<p>The real question is how those people do compared to the other applicants, say a 3.8 with a 2000 SAT.</p>
<p>I wonder how holistic UC schools actually are if they don’t require recommendations. Presumably that is where a lot of the 3rd party validation of character and other holistic stuff wouid come out.</p>
<p>The UC holistic review methodology is obviously designed more for scalability and consistency than that of many other holistic review methodologies. Not using recommendations, and using self-reported courses and grades and verifying them later with transcripts only from matriculated students (i.e. no transcripts at application, and no conversion of transcripts at the admissions office), is presumably intended to reduce the load on high school teachers and counselors as well as their own admissions staff. Institutional needs and wants are set ahead of time for admissions readers, rather than being set on the fly (“we already admitted enough oboe players…”).</p>
<p>Looking at the Naviance cluster points for Duke at my son’s school, it’s pretty danged clear that the test scores are vital. Those with super high SATS and grades will be accepted pretty much. I don’t think there is one reject if those are both top notch. If not, the kid has to have something else the school really wants–athletics, achievement on a national level for something, legacy, development, URM status. Not a one of the kids who scored over 1500 ( two part) wtih pretty much straight As, was reject. Not a single one. Of those accepted NOT in that cluster, there was a striking reason in the fore mentioned categories. That’s where the “holistic” comes into play. </p>
<p>I’m looking to see what happens next year. Some truly lack lustre kids in terms of ECs, very run of the miil but super stats–one just got his results today 2340, he’s either first or second in the class thus far, his weak point is the reading. Doesn’t write that well. Parents concerned because the academics are the only 5 star thing about him. I doubt the counslors and teachers will diss him; they’ll give him whatever boost he needs to get into a top school as they know that he has that chance and that they can quash it and they don’t want to. He’s a nice kid, no reason NOT to promote him. Essay…who knows who is going to be tempering it by the time it gets there. My bet is that he’ll get accepted by DUke as well as few others like him. HPY? Nope. But Duke, yes. </p>
<p>Thanks. Great find.
I’ll look through it later, but I was curious about Table 10.
It seems that ECs are not much of a factor. Did I read that right? </p>
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<p>I really liked this model. I think it also made it easier for students.
I expect though that the main reason is that it makes it much easier to quickly sort through 90,000 applications and apply a quick screen.</p>
<p>It does make me wonder how the miraculous story of a 2.7GPA, 1800 SAT student can be considered in a holistic way. I forgot if the app had a place to designate hardship or some other type of flag.</p>
<p>“Good job”, “active”, and “contributes” seem to relate to ECs.</p>
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<p>There is probably a quick screen for baseline UC eligibility (high school course work subjects fulfilled, minimum 3.0 HS GPA (3.4 HS GPA for non-residents)), since that can be flagged by a simple computer program.</p>
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<p>Given the importance of GPA, an applicant with a 2.7 HS GPA and 1800 SAT has very little chance of admission unless s/he is a recruited athlete. Normal baseline UC eligibility requires a 3.0 HS GPA (3.4 HS GPA for non-residents), but Berkeley admissions (excluding the recruited athlete situations) is far more competitive than that.</p>
<p>Cptofthehouse: I just checked my school’s Naviance for Duke; of the three highest-scoring applicants, the highest was accepted, but of the next two, that were practically on top of each other, one was waitlisted and one was accepted. You might not get accepted without the scores, but the scores themselves don’t guarantee acceptance. This is what kids sometimes don’t appreciate.</p>
<p>Our school’s naviance shows one outlier acceptance with a 3.75 GPA and the third lowest SAT’s (~1460/2250) of the accepted Duke kids. The others are all clustered very high SAT’s and GPA. We do have 1 rejection where both the SAT and GPA are very high. Looking at our scattergram, I would say both GPA and SAT are important, but I would give the edge to the SAT being the top indicator as to whether or not a kid will be accepted into Duke. (Although one rejected kid looks to have perfect SAT’s but only a 3.5 GPA)</p>
<p>I know one kid who went to Duke, but he pretty much hated the type of student typical of the school and transferred. I might have some faith in Ms. Harlow’s account except for that and the Tucker Max books.</p>